


Spidersiblings

by Not_You



Series: Eight-Armed Hugs [12]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Animal Instincts, Animalistic, Egg Laying, F/M, Family Feels, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 07:28:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4254645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The second brood will be even more loved than the first, because they have big sisters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spidersiblings

Natasha can't help being stealthy. It's her nature and her training, so she sneaks away to buy a pregnancy test like she did last time. It's only after the transaction that she starts to feel watched, and she's very proud of the way Alisa keeps her distance. It's really only her faint, spidery scent that gives her away. Otherwise Natasha wouldn't have noticed the tiny girl behind the rack of sunglasses. Test in hand, she goes over and plucks a pink-framed pair from the rack, trying them on and admiring the effect with her own dark wig.

“I'm proud of you,” she tells Alisa. “I honestly didn't know you had come after me until now.”

Alisa beams up at her. “Really, Mom?”

“Really. Now let's see if we have a second brood coming.”

It's just like the last time, only now when Natasha opens the stall door Alisa is bouncing up and down, waiting for news. She smiles at her spiderling. “It's positive,” Natasha says, going to wash her hands as Alisa hugs her around the waist. Natasha returns the hug only for Alisa to wriggle out of it after a moment and pull her phone out of her pocket. Natasha chuckles, and waits while Alisa informs her sisters, a chorus of happy trills and squeals bursting out of the phone even at this distance.

“Don't tell Dad,” Alisa adds, “that's Mom's job.” She listens to a presumable affirmative, and then hangs up.

“Thank you, dear,” Natasha says, and Alisa smiles.

“It's only fair that you get to tell him, especially since both batches were planned, so telling Dad was fun.”

Natasha chuckles, taking her hand. The other girls are too grownup for this kind of thing in public, but Alisa smiles and follows Natasha out. She's still the quietest and the shyest of the brood, even now. The first brood, anyway, and Natasha has to fight not the put the happy, protective hand on her own belly that is such a giveaway.

Clint looks worried when they come in, but not driven to distraction, and hugs Alisa gently. “Alisa, tip me off next time, I thought you were actually missing for a minute, there.”

“Sorry, Dad,” she says, returning the hug.

“It's okay, your sisters told me when I really got worried.” He looks over her head at Natasha, who smiles. “...That so looks like a positive smile.”

She chuckles. “That's because it is.” 

Clint lets go of Alisa to hug her, and the girls all batten onto the outside of it, all eight of them completely delighted. “At least this time I have a fighting chance to not freak out,” Clint says softly, and Natasha chuckles.

Just like the last time, Natasha's human-style pregnancy only lasts twenty-three weeks. Clint had shown her images of micropreemies after the last time, to make her understand his terror, and this time he can actually be with her when the time comes, the way he wants to be. She still finds his presence irritating and retreats into the closet, but now he can sit just outside the door, his scent calm with only a little dusting of anxious, excited pheromones. They make her sneeze a few times as she shifts around, uncomfortable with the need to lay her eggs, but she knows that most men would be incapable even of this, and values it accordingly.

Natasha feels her spinnerets twitch to life, and soon she's making the little mat of silk that begins an egg sac. It's as white as snow until she starts working the blue dye into it, and after about five minutes it's the same pretty ice blue as the last egg sac. She smiles to see it, and then grits her teeth, pushing out the first egg. This is another clutch of eight, but the last two are very small. They're as round and sound as the others, though, and also smell the same, so she gathers them all in together, wrapping them into a big ball and hugging them before lightly knocking on the door. Clint opens it in a moment and crawls in, beaming.

“Aw, it's as pretty as the last one,” he says softly, shutting the door behind him and carefully patting the egg sac.

Natasha hugs him, tired and very glad to have such a good mate. When she can get up, she has to carry the egg sac herself, but Clint holds the door for her and helps her get comfortably situated in their web with it before going down to Steve's floor to fetch the girls. The brood hasn't actually been sent away, as such, but Natasha is glad to have a minute to settle down with her eggs before the girls come quietly filing in to look at them. At least they're her girls, so they can be quiet, despite how excited they are. Natasha has been worried about cannibalistic urges, but the girls seem to be feeling more motherly than anything.

The first brood is actually a great help with their siblings. They have the same instinctive knowledge of the narrow optimum temperature and humidity range for the egg sac that Natasha does, and help Clint fine-tune what he learned with them. The girls also act as ushers when the rest of the team wants to see the egg sac, sternly telling them not to be bright or loud and herding them out when their time is up. It's adorable, though she and Clint make an agreement not to say so, because it might hurt their feelings.

All the practice and extra help apparently pays off, because the girls shake Natasha awake to say that the babies are trying to hatch at least a week before she was expecting it. It's the middle of the night, and Clint wakes beside her, both of them sitting up to allow the girls to crowd onto the web beside them, making it vibrate slightly with their excitement. The bubble-like eggs are bulging and wobbling in a barely-visible way, and then first one bursts, and then another. Natasha's heart is suddenly in her throat, wondering if the two little ones are duds are after all, but just as she's mentally drafting an explanation to give the girls, the tiny eggs burst to reveal even tinier babies. Everyone eats the skin of their egg, and in the days that follow the larger babies are careful of the smaller ones, always moving them to the top of the happy, giggling pile.

A week after the eggs hatch, Natasha has Tony run the same kind of ultrasound on this sac as he did for the last one, and they learn that the tiny babies are male, and presumably supposed to be that small. The girls squeal to learn that they have little brothers, and sit around the egg sac, patting it and admonishing their little sisters to play nice with their little brothers.

“I really don't wanna be weird about this,” Clint says, alternately tapping his first two fingers on the sac so the miniscule boys can bat at them and giggle, “but I'm kinda glad to have some boys.”

“If it was the other way around I'd feel the same,” Natasha says.

“Russian names for this batch, you think? We might as well keep the theme.”

“I don't see why not,” Natasha says, and picks up the spray bottle she carries to delicately mist the egg sac and the rest of her family as well, because they don't want to move. She can't really blame them. At this stage the egg sac is fascinating, a fairy tale bag of impossibly tiny people, but at last they need to get out of Tony's way. All of them but Zhanna and Zoya, who seem to be the most mechanically-inclined so far, and are always glad to stick around the lab and help their uncle Tony work. The others all team up to carry the egg sac back up to their floor, where everyone but Rada goes off to her own amusements. Rada stays by the egg sac, fascinated by her tiny siblings, and Natasha smiles, thinking that Rada will be wonderful with an egg sac of her own someday.


End file.
